Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.

Originally posted by Ashok Mash: I got the same - The Northeast - now, I don't have an American accent, but would it be correct to assume that of all American accents, the Northeast accent is close to the UK/Ireland/India accents?

I wouldn't say that it's all that close to those accents, but out of all the US accents the northeastern accent is the closest. When I lived in England, many of my British friends told me that I was easier to understand than some of my American counterparts from different areas of the US.

Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.

Got me wrong. I grew up in Connecticut, went to school in Boston, lived in California for many years, and now live in Maryland. Never set foot in the "inland North", unless you could occasionally changing planes at O'Hare.

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

I am inland north, too. My dutch co-worker sometimes complains. Funny thing is that I use quite a lot of english, but haven't visited an english speaking country for nearly 30 years. I guess that most foreigners will end up in the Inland North category. [ November 21, 2006: Message edited by: Axel Janssen ]

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

"You have a good voice for TV and radio" -- not true, as I don't watch/listen much of any, but I read a lot about pronunciation, so apparently I can tell how the words are supposed to sound when I see them

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is: ROFL "You have a good voice for TV and radio" -- not true, as I don't watch/listen much of any, but I read a lot about pronunciation, so apparently I can tell how the words are supposed to sound when I see them

They always say that newcasters and talk show hosts try for a mid-western dialect. it is thought of as very "neutral". Johnny Carson is sometimes referred to as the guy who started this trend (since he is originally from the midwest - Iowa).

Just because you don't WATCH tv doesn't mean you don't have the dialect for it.

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

"We're kind of on the level of crossword puzzle writers... And no one ever goes to them and gives them an award." ~Joe Strummersscce.org

Mapraputa Is
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posted Nov 21, 2006 20:01:00

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fred: Just because you don't WATCH tv doesn't mean you don't have the dialect for it.

Um, do you mean accent? I am positively sure that I don't speak with the neutral accent -- some strangers were immediately able to tell I am a Russian after they heard a couple of sentences in my performance. Or do you mean that the Midland accent exist regardless of whether I watch TV or not? I don't argue with this. Just thought it's ironical that of all people in this thread Mapraputa got the most unaccented speech :roll:

Predictably, I got the same results as Map (we are from the same country). But the conclusion ("you have a good voice for TV or radio") is plain wrong: I do in fact have a thick accent, so I bet 25% of the listeners will have trouble understanding my speech. I think the problem with this test is that it asks you how a particular word sounds to you, as opposed to how this word sounds to others when spoken by you. It's of course difficult to answer the latter question. But I can see myself writing a Java app that would do it scientifically: you speak a set of words into a microphone, and the program does that spectral thing to determine your accent. Perhaps it can also help one get rid of accent, too.

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

It came up with "The Northeast" for me too. I have lived in Vancouver, Canada, for most of my life and I think I have a standard accent for the area, but I still have residual British vowels (and I am still unable to use the word "gotten" in a sentence).

Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent.

It ranked me "west" but I don't know where they think that is. I'm not sure what "lowest" means to them, either, but I grew up in Nebraska which was once "broadcast standard English" or the absence of an accent. Spent another 17 years in Kansas which is dangerously close to Oklahoma for anyone who wants to speak English.

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of the idea. John Ciardi

I took the test as well (with my very English accent) and resulted in having a north-eastern accent.

Is there a correlation between physical distance from the north east, and difference in the accent? If so, then perhaps the north east is the default location.

Originally posted by Jason Menard: I wouldn't say that it's all that close to those accents, but out of all the US accents the north-eastern accent is the closest. When I lived in England, many of my British friends told me that I was easier to understand than some of my American counterparts from different areas of the US.

I've found that Americans I've met or listened to in the media are much easier to understand if they are from the north east (Canadians are even easier to understand), but people from the south may as well be speaking a foreign language sometimes. The southern accent combined with local slang and the strange habit of pronouncing every statement as a question makes them very hard to understand. I could do with subtitles when watching some American TV programmes! [ November 22, 2006: Message edited by: Dave Lenton ]

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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is: [QB Um, do you mean accent? I am positively sure that I don't speak with the neutral accent[/QB]

My understanding is this... a dialect refers to speech patterns for a particular area, culture, or group of people. everyone speaks in a certain dialect (or mish-mosh of several). Your dialect doesn't change much, without conscious effort.

an "accent" generally refers to "speaking differently than others around you". if you dropped me in with a group of new yorkers, they'd all say i had an accent. but if you dropped me into a room full of St. Louisians, they'd all say i don't (more or less). my DIALECT didn't change, but the fact that i have an accent would change.

in other words, you only have an accent when you are with a group of people who speak differently than you.

a dialect refers to speech patterns for a particular area, culture, or group of people

Strictly, a dialect is more than just speech patterns. A dialect differs from an accent because it includes distinct words* not seen in other dialects. My dialect for example (officially, Scottish Standard English I understand) sounds pretty much like oddly spoken English (or Bostonian, I've just discovered), but includes enough distinct words to qualify for a dictionary in its own right. I could change my dialect by not using distinctly Scottish words. But I might struggle to change my accent, given basic stuff like how I form vowels has been learned over years and is not easily thrown away (as countless actors have amusingly demonstrated many, many times in numerous films).

* though I've no idea how many or how distinct they need to be to qualify.

Well, the #2 choice is correct. No idea how Boston comes into the mix. Sounds like the test really needs a few more questions to discriminate more accurately there.

Ryan: B, all different. I suppose that the 't' in faults may be fairly subtle, so perhaps false and faults sound very similar to a listener when I say them, but there's definitely a difference in how I intend to pronounce them.

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Jason Menard
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posted Nov 22, 2006 15:23:00

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So is it only the Boston graphs that will display correctly here or did you guys (Jim and Bear) do something to get UBB to display the HTML correctly?

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posted Nov 22, 2006 16:49:00

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Bear, Marc and I are just being rewarded because our hearts are pure. EFH has a pure heart much of the time, but apparently not when he posted above. (Though RMS would describe the situation differently.) Bert Bates or Pauline McNamara would almost certainly be able to post correctly. [ November 22, 2006: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

Jim Yingst
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posted Nov 22, 2006 17:06:00

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You can fix the broken HTML by replacing the single space before each </div></div> with "&nbsp;". [ November 22, 2006: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst: ... Bert Bates or Pauline McNamara would almost certainly be able to post correctly...

If I'm not mistaken, Ulf Dittmer is also pure at heart.

Jason Menard
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posted Nov 22, 2006 17:55:00

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Thanks! Apparently I'm not very pure.

John Dunn
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posted Nov 22, 2006 19:45:00

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Sorry to digress...

but I just want to mention, after numerous conversations with expatriates at work tonight at our Thanksgiving party, that I bet a lot of the expats on this site don't fully appreciate how some areas of the U.S. are apathethic to accents. I often get folks apologizing profusely for their "bad" english, while I just think about my grandparents, or friend's grandparents or neighbors, etc... You can't grow up in the tri-state area, (i.e. NY, NJ, CT), and not know some immigrants! [roll eyes] So I don't really think folks here give a damn about accents if you can convey your message. That said, I'm sure there are areas of the US, that will give people grief, but it isn't an American thing.

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posted Nov 23, 2006 02:50:00

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Originally posted by Ryan McGuire: But does it sound like there's a "t" in "false"?

My toungue comes pretty darn close to stopping the flow of air between the "l" and the "s" in false, which sounds like a "t" to many.

Hmm, strange, no I've never heard "false" pronounced with a "t" sound in it!

I pronounce it a bit like the word "fall" with an "s" stuck on the end.

Actually, that isn't a very useful way of describing how I pronounce it, as the word "fall" is pronounced differently in the US to in my part of the UK. I really should learn IPA, but has always seemed a bit confusing.

Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.

Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard.